Singapore snatches Hong Kong’s Asia crown on IMD World Talent Ranking

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Switzerland-based International Institute for Management Development recently released the 2018 IMD World Talent Ranking which examines the talent pool of 63 territories around the world based on three factors: investment and development (the resources committed to cultivate home-grown human capital), appeal (the attractiveness of the country towards local and foreign talent), and readiness (the quality of the skills and competencies).

Here are the top 40:

The majority of the top spots are held by Europeans and mid-sized economies, which have high levels of investments in education and quality of life.

Hong Kong was placed 18th in the world talent rankings this year, dropping six notches from last year. On the other hand, its trade rival Singapore managed to come first among all Asian economies in 13th place.

It was revealed from the report the reason for Hong Kong’s decline was due to the lack of public investment in education.

“The talent strengths are in appealing to overseas highly skilled professionals which enables it to sustain its top-tier talent pool, however, its gradual decline is worrying for the future, especially considering that it lags behind in terms of public investments in education,” the report said.

Indeed, let’s look at the chart:

The total public expenditure on education in Hong Kong in terms of the GDP is ranked 56 out of 63 economies. In this section, only the rank of the female labour force stood out.

Despite the poor performance in investment and development, Hong Kong performed well in appeal and readiness.

The chief executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, reassured the public that since her inauguration her administration has put in an additional HK$8.3 billion in recurrent expenditure, which is approximately a 10% increase.

She pledged to conduct policy reviews from time to time and allocate more resources for students to develop their creativity and cultivate an international mindset.

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